With as much pomp and circumstance as the NFL lockout was given (as it was denoted on this blog) its seems like not nearly as many people are mentioning the work stoppage in the NBA that is more than likely going to at least cause a delay to the NBA season. First, I'm sure there are a number of reasons for that. Football is the most beloved sport of the American masses right now, and the idea of the NFL missing games when the sport is so popular and there isn't a recent history of bad blood between the two sides in a Collective Bargaining Agreement probably led to the mass medias reaction of saturating the news feeds. On the side of the NBA though, we have something a lot more sinister, something that really should have people taking notice and have them seriously upset, but the problem is it isn't being reported because fans already consider it a foregone conclusion. The NBA isn't going to be playing for a long time. We're going to miss the start of the season for sure, probably through the New Year, possibly through the All-Star Games' time frame, and I certainly wouldn't rule out the whole season being called off.
With a season where the Commissioner got his golden wish and got a beloved dream team that was the Miami (Super) Heat; when television revenues were through the roof and people had the NBA on the tip of their tongues for most of the winter and into the spring and summer months, somehow, someway the NBA lost money. Now it is true that it is very easy to manipulate numbers and promise that an organization or a group of them, or even a whole league is losing money and have it not be entirely true, and I certainly wouldn't put it past the likes of a shrewd businessman like David Stern to do something like that. There's something different about this case though. I really do think that the NBA is, if not broke, at least losing money.
Now when the NFL lockout was going on I made a post that provided support of the owners (as well as the players), if only because players pass from community to community on the regular whereas an organization more than likely will be linked to a community for a long time, and the welfare of that organization means something to the welfare of that community. This time is different though. Its different because the NBA and the NBA's owners did this to themselves.
For instance, take the most visible of the issues between the players and the owners, this being the desire by the owners for a hard salary cap. For those that don't know, under the old system organizations could go over on their roster payroll with the caveat of if they were resigning a player that had been on the team (new additions had to fit under the cap) as well as having to pay a luxury tax in this instance. This led to the likes of Joe Johnson (in Atlanta) and Rudy Gay (in Memphis) getting max contracts among others. Now don't get me wrong, Joe Johnson and Rudy Gay are very good, even at times great basketball players, but they are not max contract worthy. You could even argue Rudy Gay isn't the best player on his team (Zach Randolph?), and he's getting a max deal? There's no way that should happen. Why does it happen though? The same reason why ticket prices go up for sporting events continuously, because the consumer lets it happen. The owners shell out the money (just like fans do on tickets and merchandise). The thought was that if Memphis wouldn't give a max deal to Gay, then someone else would, so they were forced to give him the cash. The owners then are their own worst enemy because they are willing to recklessly spend to the point that they can't sustain themselves.
The owners made their own bed this time, and now that they're hurting they want to fix the problem by taking the money away from the players, which is understandable yet unfair to those players that don't deserve the punishment for the owners' mismanagement. No one held a gun to Michael Heisley's (Memphis's owner) head and told him to spend $16 million a year on Rudy Gay. He could have recognized the hole he was creating for himself and moved on. Either way would have created consequences. Not signing Gay makes the team a lot less talented and profitable, they probably don't have their surprising playoff run if they don't have Gay to help them get their in the regular season, but isn't there a reason why Heisley hires a staff? Don't they get paid their money to find solutions on basketball problems like how to learn to win under a budget? Instead Memphis took the easy way out and just paid Gay, and they suffered for it later.
And I don't mean to make the Memphis Grizzlies my whipping boy, they are just the most readily available example to me of the mismanagement that got the NBA in this mess. Its just a shame how the owners mess things up and then count on selling short the players in the new CBA and the fans with a lack of a season in order to rectify the mistakes they brought on themselves. And really, I'm afraid I'm just scratching the surface.
What's the baseline?
The owners did this one to themselves. I hope the NBA Players' Union is in this for the long haul. If we're going to miss out on a season as fans, the chips should at least fall in favor of the right people. Of course though, they probably won't.
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